


How to Survive

by jmandrake



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Heinz Almost Dies a Lot and It's Becoming a Problem, Human AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6770977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmandrake/pseuds/jmandrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the latest mission with their OWCA team, Perry starts to worry about Heinz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Survive

It doesn’t matter how many times Perry tries to explain it. He’s made charts, video reminders, handouts; he’s set alarms on his team’s watches that go off with a violent rattle when they don’t check in. He’s made lists of things that count as Unnecessary Risks. He’s thought about calling in Carl for a talk, but he doesn’t want to call attention to it, doesn’t want to imply that the whole thing might have been a mistake.

The _whole thing_ is Heinz Doofenshmirtz. At OWCA. Black-band fedora’d and always by Perry’s side. 

But not always. Not today.

He has no reason to complain. The mission was a success. Everything worked out, the way it always does. Their team is an inexplicable, recurring miracle that keeps Perry awake at night, prodding for weak points, still caught in the moments where everything almost collapsed. If Karen hadn’t grabbed the rope in time, if Harry had leaned too far off the balcony, if Heinz ... if Heinz hadn’t ...

A car picks them up at the drop site. Harry has the files safely in hand—the plans for the mass assembly of deadly robots that could lock onto the nearest warm body. A few of the bots had already been built by the time they’d tunneled into the factory. A few of them activated. Heinz has been closest. Their death rays missed Heinz by centimeters.

Perry squeezes his eyes shut and listens to the hum of the tires beneath them, his head resting on the cool window. It’s a tight fit for all five of them and the driver. His leg bumps against Heinz’s knee. Maggie makes friendly chatter with the driver. Heinz chimes in when he hears that the driver is planning a backpacking trip through Europe. He starts recounting the time he got lost somewhere in the Alps, sheltering for four days in a bitterly cold cave. Might not have made it if he hadn’t run into another group of hikers. They had brought amazing sandwiches. He would have starved. 

Perry sinks lower into the seat.

Back at the hotel, Perry treads silently, heavily, into the elevator, every muscle taut and aching. The rest of the team lingers in the lobby, flushed with victory and that rare synergy they manage when no one else, not even Perry, seems to be looking. Perry watches them until he starts to feel a pain his chest, and then he flips the button for the fifth floor. 

At the last minute, Heinz hurries in beside him, stooped with his head too far forward, his body coiled in on itself in a way that no amount of training is going to leech out of him. He gives Perry that slow, scooped smile that Perry has started to take for granted.

“We were _awesome_ today,” Heinz says. He puts his hand in a fist and holds it out to Perry. Perry just stares at it. 

“Oh, come on, the factory’s gone, Dr. Opps wasn’t _badly_ hurt, he’ll go to jail the way he’s supposed to.” Heinz pauses, glancing down at his shoes. “You were really amazing. I was tripping over my own feet, and you pulled me out of the way. Teamwork!” 

His enthusiasm makes Perry’s stomach churn. He shifts from foot to foot, watching the floor numbers tick by.

He’ll _have_ to get Carl in. How else can he make him understand?

And Heinz keeps going on and on about it. The explosion at the back of the factory that nearly got them all. The bullets at the security entrance. The robots bearing down on Heinz. “I just forgot to move! Whew! I’ll be better tomorrow, I guess.”

The doors open on the fifth floor and Perry bolts away. His hands are shaking so bad it takes him three tries to get his keycard to work. He can hear Heinz running up behind him, but finally the door opens and he falls inside. Slams it shut behind him.

He hopes Heinz will take the hint. But realistically—

“Perry! Perry, come on.” Heinz bangs on the door with the flat of his hand, the sound both soft and loud. “Perry, talk to me. What’s wrong? What happened? Come on.” 

And of course he can’t answer. He’s squeezing his fedora in his hands, because he wants to hold something and know it will stay put. His heart is racing—did it do this in the factory? Before he dove for Heinz, not caring if he got hit in the process, did he feel this cold, jagged pulse, like hailstones chugging through his veins?

“Let me in, Perry,” Heinz pleads. “Tell me what I did wrong.”

His voice cracks on the last word, and Perry hates himself. He blows air out of his cheeks; Heinz always makes fun of the growly, clicking noise it makes.

Heinz hears it through the door. “Ok _aaaay_. I hear you. I didn’t do anything wrong. So why don’t you open up and talk to me?”

Perry flips the latch open and walks toward the bed, running a hand over his face. It takes Heinz a few minutes to realize he’s been invited in. Perry lifts his head when he walks in, quailing with shame and frustration and something in his heart too tender to name. 

Heinz looks at him for a while, then snaps his fingers. “Can I make you some tea, Perry? Here, here.” Heinz walks over to the table with the microwave and thumbs through the packets of sugar and coffee that Perry didn’t even realize were there. “You can try the lemon-flavored one. I had it last night, it’s—well, it’s not my favorite, but it smells good. You’ll like it.” 

Heinz shakes a paper cup out of a wrapper, fills it in the sink. The coffeemaker is behind the microwave, and Heinz plugs it up and sets up the filters. It takes a couple of minutes before he’s satisfied with the tea. Perry watches him the whole time, wondering how he can be like this, so _like himself_ when Perry feels like he’s going to be sick.

At last Heinz pushes the warm paper cup into his hands. Perry takes a deep whiff. The smell is citrus-y enough to remind him of home, the Flynn-Fletchers making morning kitchen noises, warm gray light peeking in through the windows. The first sip burns his tongue, but it’s good. It at least gives his hands something to do.

Heinz sits beside him with one ankle resting on his knee, both hands gripping the edge of the bed. 

“Sooooo. What’s up?”

Perry doesn’t know how to explain it. Heinz can read sign language, is fluent at it, in fact, but no gesture or words seem sufficient to explain how anxious today’s mission made him. It _doesn’t_ make sense that it should suddenly hit him now, how dangerous this life is. How quick the beats are between being here and being gone. 

He sets the cup down on the table. After a long minute, he decides he can’t keep quiet any longer. He folds his arms over one another like an X, then tilts his palm toward Heinz, up and over. _Don’t. Die._

Heinz looks at him with wide, blue eyes. He laughs. “Well, I’m gonna have to eventually—”

Perry pushes him with an angry shove. He says it again. _Don’t. Die._ This time, he lets his palm flatten on Heinz’s chest, against his heart. 

“Oh—” Heinz breathes. “Oh. Okay.” 

Perry presses both hands against Heinz's chest, folded over one another like ... like CPR, like a prayer. He stares at Heinz until he meets his gaze. Until Heinz notices how badly Perry is still shaking. If anyone has earned the right to see him like this, it’s him, and of course he’s the cause of it. _Not_ that Heinz did anything wrong, per se. It’s just that the window to get it right is so small, and it never mattered much before if Perry was off, or if Heinz let his machines self-destruct. Perry had monitored all the materials he used, and he’d always known none of it was fatal. But now every day is a new environment, new rules, things he can’t possibly prepare for.

Losing Heinz is one of them. 

“I—I didn’t mean to scare you.” Heinz is talking twice as fast as usual, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Perry’s. “I thought you were, I don’t know, sort of used to it by now. I do something stupid, you stop me. Ha _haaaa_.” The last laugh slides out oddly, a whisper, like Heinz has finally run out of breath. He swallows hard. “I didn’t think you _got_ scared, Perry.” 

It’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever said. Perry thinks the words again— _I didn’t think you got scared_ —three times before he can manage to move. When he does, it’s like he’s oozing forward, the knots in his muscles rapidly unraveling until there’s nothing left to hold him up. He leans forward—and everything is happening so slowly, like he’s floating in a dream—and presses his face against the backs of his hands, still folded in Heinz’s shirt. Heinz’s chest hitches, and that nearly knocks Perry loose, but he just digs his fingers into the shirt fabric. Stays there. Breathes.

“P-Perry?” Heinz’s voice is so quiet. 

Perry melts forward again, pressing his face into the curve of Heinz’s neck and shoulder, close enough to feel his pulse jump against his ear. After a few seconds, Heinz swings an arm around the back of Perry’s head and holds him there, breathing in and out. 

And there it is. 

So much of Perry’s life has been spent thinking about the unnavigable space between them, and now that it’s gone, he’s amazed at how easily, how effortlessly the boundaries have blurred. He inches an arm around Heinz’s waist and clutches him closer, overcome with the feeling that he needs to make this last. But the urge doesn’t feel as frantic as before. It just feels ... right. Like this is just what they always do. 

So when Heinz ducks his head and presses his mouth softly against Perry’s cheek, it isn’t even a surprise. Barely a second has passed before Perry feels Heinz tensing in his arms, uncertain, but before he can pull away, Perry tilts his head and returns the kiss, his teeth on Heinz’s lower lip. 

Heinz makes a sound in the back of his throat like he’s been kicked, and that’s when Perry reluctantly breaks away. He feels flushed and lightheaded, and Heinz is staring at him with his mouth open. 

Perry’s face heats up, and he curls his finger and thumb into an circle, lifts the other three. _... Okay? Is this okay?_

He tries to give a hopeful smile, one that somehow properly conveys how good it feels to be tucked into Heinz just like this, and how none of that would matter if it didn’t feel right to Heinz. All that matters is that Heinz is safe and happy and can still smile the way he's meant to.

Perry gestures again, searching for a response. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Heinz says suddenly, voice rising to babble-pitch. He pulls at Perry’s collar, his face inches away. “Yes, yes, of course, yes. From the moment I first saw you, yes.”

Then there is nothing separating them at all, Heinz’s warm breath on his neck and Perry’s nose smushed against his skin. Perry’s heart aches, but he’s laughing, too, something he didn’t think he could manage today. And Heinz is still _talking_.

“Well, maybe not the _first time_. I mean, then too. My nemesis. You were going to _ruin_ me, and I was okay with that. It’s just—it feels different now that I know you better—better than I’ve known ... well, anyone.” Heinz’s kisses are sloppy and frantic, moving from ear to cheek to chin. “You were always so _much_. Don’t worry about me, okay? I’ve got you. I’ve _got_ you, it’s fine.”

His words move over Perry’s skin, weighted like little stones, and Perry feels more anchored to Heinz Doofenshmirtz than ever before. Like he’d know how to find him if he woke up in the middle of nowhere.

Like if all it takes to separate them is a bullet, or a bad fall, or a robot death ray to the face, then the world just isn’t ready for them.


End file.
